Chicago Bridge & Iron Honored for Work On LIGO Project.

PLAINFIELD, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 15, 1999--

Chicago Bridge & Iron Company N.V. (NYSE & ASE: CBI) was recognized and honored for its role in the construction of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) Project. LIGO is a scientific collaboration of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is funded by the National Science Foundation.

At a dedication ceremony held for the LIGO facility in Livingston, Louisiana on Nov. 12, 1999, Mr. Gary H. Sanders, Deputy Director of LIGO at Caltech, expressed praise and appreciation for the contributions by Chicago Bridge & Iron in the successful construction and testing of the LIGO Project beam tube modules. Attending the ceremony on behalf of CB&I were Steve Crain, Vice President - Global Sales and Marketing; Scott Lapcewich, Vice President - Marketing; Vance Gervais, Vice President and Area Director of Operations, Latin America and Caribbean; and Lance Buboltz, Project Manager.

CB&I was responsible for design, fabrication, erection and leak testing of the stainless steel vacuum beam tube modules at the two LIGO facilities in Livingston and Hanford, Washington. Each facility consists of two legs in the shape of an "L", with each leg composed of a vacuum beam tube 49 in. (1.2 m) in diameter and 2.5 miles (4 km) in length. The beam tubes and associated chambers comprise one of the world's largest vacuum systems, with a volume of nearly 350,000 cubic feet at each facility. During the course of the project, CB&I fabricated and installed 800 beam tube sections at the two sites, produced 60 miles of spiral weld without a single leak and aligned each beam tube module to an accuracy of 9 mm over its 2 km length.

Mr. Sanders cited several key CB&I initiatives that contributed to the success of the project, including:

- The development effort at CB&I's Plainfield office to build and

test a representative beam tube segment;

- The Company's decision to procure its own spiral tube mill and to

perform the fabrication of spiral welded sections adjacent to

each site;

- Research, procurement and implementation of special square wave

high frequency welding equipment that ensured full fusion welds;

- Design and implementation of shop and field leak testing

equipment for individual tube sections and the field girth weld

seams that resulted in successful testing of the completed

modules; and

- Implementation of Global Satellite Positioning (GPS) technology

to provide the required precision alignment.

LIGO is designed to sense the presence of matter in the distant reaches of the universe. It does this by detecting the gravitational waves -- ripples in the force of gravity -- created by violent events such as the collisions of stars and the vibrations of black holes. LIGO detects these waves by measuring minute changes in the length of travel for laser beams projected through the vacuum beam tubes. It is expected LIGO will be able to detect and measure gravitational waves out to distances of 70 million light-years from Earth.

CB&I is a global engineering and construction company specializing in the design and engineering, fabrication, field erection and repair of bulk liquid terminals, steel tanks, pressure vessels, low temperature and cryogenic storage facilities and other steel plate structures and their associated systems. Information about Chicago Bridge & Iron is available from the Company's Web site at www.chicagobridge.com.